the opposition school, an Afrikaans high school named Helpmekaar, which translated into English means Help each other. Helpmekaar enjoyed a huge reputation in all sport except cricket. Its boxing team was said to be the best in South Africa and had won the South African schools Boxing Championships the year before.
At one hundred and eleven pounds the kid I was fighting was just one pound short of being a bantamweight. I didn’t mind as I was used to fighting guys heavier and bigger than me and had fought tougher looking kids than him before. But Hymie was concerned, this was the first time we were going into business together and at the weigh-in he’d looked worried.
‘Ten pounds is a lot to give away, this Geldenhuis guy is supposed to be shit hot.’
‘C’mon, Hymie, he’s a new boy just like us, how would they know? How’s the book going?’
‘Great, that’s the problem. I’ve been taking bets in the toilet from the Helpmekaar chaps all night and I’ve got you at ten to one against four to one on Geldenhuis and they’re falling over themselves to bet on their man.’
‘That’s great, did you tell the first form boarders to bet on me?’
‘Ja, they’re all pretty excited, but their bets aren’t anywhere near enough to cover us if Geldenhuis wins. Christ, Peekay, I must be mad. It’s not having all the facts that’s pissing me off. We have no form on Geldenhuis, none on you for that matter, we’re making book in the dark, that’s just plain dumb.’
‘We’ve got to start somewhere. Let’s start by trusting each other.’
‘No offence, Peekay, but next time first the facts and then the trust.’ It was perhaps the most important thing Hymie ever said to me. Hymie was the supreme example of Hoppie’s dictum: First with the head and then with the heart. It was to be the basis of our business operations from that time on.
Geldenhuis was solidly built around the shoulders and I knew I’d have to stay away from his right, which he kept throwing straight from the shoulder as he shadow boxed while waiting for the fight to begin.
Geel Piet had warned me that some boxers throw shadow punches before a fight to deceive their opponent into thinking they lead with a left or a right when in actual fact it’s the other way around. The idea is to surprise your opponent in the first few seconds and so unsettle him. I studied the big kid and decided there wasn’t any subterfuge in his shadow boxing, he was much too confident to bother with any tricks. His leading hand was the left and I noticed he held his right too low, leaving his jaw unprotected. His slightly more open stance suggested that he saw himself as a fighter. In which case he would come out hard and fast hoping to nail me early with a good punch.
For my part I would always ‘just sit on the pot’, as Geel Piet called sitting quietly on the tiny three-legged corner stool waiting for the fight to begin. ‘Tell them nothing, jong,’ he had said, ‘just sit and watch, watch very carefully. I’m telling you, man, you can tell a lot about a boxer even before he throws a punch, if you watch him carefully.’
The bell for the first round went and after we’d touched gloves the Helpmekaar kid came at me fast. He was hard eyed and I could sense he planned to make short work of the fight. I saw the first straight left coming from a mile off and allowed it to miss the side of my head by a fraction. A near miss with the leading hand often gives a boxer the confidence to try again immediately with a similar punch, thrown even harder than the first it invariably throws the boxer slightly off balance. The second straight left came right on time and as it whistled past my ear his right dropped to the level of his chest leaving his head wide open. I stepped in and with my body slightly turned to maximise the power, the right hook I threw landed flush on the point of his chin. He was already off balance, moving into my punch, and he hit the canvas hard, sprawling on his back. While the blow carried all my strength behind it, it was also a perfectly timed punch and a gasp went up from the Helpmekaar crowd while a wild cheer rose from our first form boarders.
The kid on the canvas sat up as the ref began to count. There was no way I could have knocked him out but he was clearly shaken. Young guys are too proud to stay down for the compulsory eight count and he jumped to his feet glowering at me. The surprise had been on the other foot and I now expected him to move around me for a while, waiting for a chance to use his superior strength to nail me with a few solid blows to the head. First you’re going to have to catch me, you Boer bastard, I thought. The referee went through the compulsory eight count, then wiped his gloves and told us to box on.
I was so obviously lighter than the other kid and now, looking into his eyes, I suddenly realised that he had regarded the blow as a fluke and had no intention of boxing smart. He moved straight at me again with his right still held too low. He was telegraphing the punch to come by watching the point of my chin. Christ, he’s going to try the left lead again. As Geel Piet would say, ‘Some fighters you can read better than a book but, ag man, the story has no blerrie imagination.’
The straight left came hard and missed, merely flicking my ear. I brought my right across his left and hit him on the side of the jaw, only just missing the point. I followed with a left hook into his solar plexus and he sat down hard, the seat of his pants seeming to bounce as he hit the canvas. I cursed myself, you don’t get too many chances for a really good right cross in a fight and I hadn’t set myself correctly. Nevertheless it was a good punch and the left had dug in just below the ribs where it really hurts.
Geldenhuis was strong and game and was back onto his feet in a second. He waited for the compulsory eight, and as the ref wiped his gloves he warned him that one more knock down meant the fight was over. I knew I’d have to be lucky to get a third crack at him and decided it was time to box, to wear him down jab, jab, jab, waiting for the chance to come under his left lead to land a series of solid punches under his heart. That way, if he wasn’t enormously fit, I’d sap his stamina to give me another crack at him in the third and final round. The bell rang for the end of the round and I returned to my corner to find Darby and Sarge grinning from ear to ear.
In the second round I simply boxed him. His style was exuberant and I waited for him to grow impatient as I kept him at his distance with constant jabs to the face. Towards the end of the round he must have realised that the fight was slipping away and he seemed determined to knock me down, even if it meant taking a couple of punches on the way. He came at me with both hands swinging. I think he expected me to move away so that he could nail me in a corner. But I stood my ground and hit him with a straight left which pushed him back against the ropes. I followed in with Geel Piet’s eight-punch combination, two good scoring shots to the head one of which opened a cut above his eye, the next bang on the nose, one more into the cut and the rest neatly placed under his heart. To my surprise, when the bell went for the end of round two, the Helpmekaar guys gave me a round of applause.
Geldenhuis didn’t come out for the third round. The referee had examined the cut above his eye and stopped the fight. I’d won a TKO, the first win for the Prince of Wales School in two years.
It didn’t seem to matter that we lost the other seven fights, though all had lasted the distance. The boxing squad, generally outclassed, hadn’t fought with such spirit and determination for years. Sarge was walking around flashing his mouth full of gold teeth and saying in a whisper that carried for yards, ‘Bloody marvellous, that ought to show those bloody Boers who’s boss.’ You’d have thought we had won the match.
The boxing coach from Helpmekaar came over and patted me on the back. ‘Who taught you to box, son?’ he said in English.
‘I learned in Barberton, Meneer,’ I replied in Afrikaans.
He looked suddenly smug. ‘Magtig. I knew you were too good for an Englishman! I’ve never seen a kid your age throw an eight-punch combination. Come to think of it, I’ve never seen any kid throw an eight-punch combination. Who taught you to box, man?’
‘Meneer Geel Piet,’ I replied.
‘Well I wish we had him at Helpmekaar, that’s all I can say, man.’
‘I don’t really think you would have wanted him,’ I replied, but he seemed not to hear me.
‘You’re an Afrikaner, what are you doing in a school like this?’ Without waiting for an answer he continued, ‘Listen, we could arrange for you to come to Helpmekaar, you’d be with your own people, we can organise a boarding scholarship.’
‘I’m English. A Rooinek,’ I said quietly. For the first time in my life I felt enormously proud about something. Perhaps it was wrong to be proud, but I’d waited a long time to come to terms with being a Rooinek.
The coach from Helpmekaar looked at me for what seemed like a long time. ‘Well you don’t box like an Englishman. Don’t desert your own kind, son. Englishmen don’t talk Afrikaans the way you do, I know, I’m a language teacher as well as a boxing coach.’
‘I am English,’ I replied in English, ‘honestly, sir.’
‘Well, Englishman, I doubt that there’s a kid in your weight division anywhere in South Africa who could beat you, that is, if this Rooinek school doesn’t bugger you up.’
